[ih] SMTP History

[Jack Haverty]

Interesting.   Do you remember... Was Steve an ARPA Program Manager at 
the time?  I.e., was adding mail to FTP an order or a suggestion?   Did 
he say anything about why Mail had to be in FTP? Were there any FTP 
implementations already functional with some form of MAIL command 
implemented that Steve wanted to become ubiquitous?   /Jack

On 3/28/22 14:50, John Day wrote:
> MAIL and MLFL were added at the last minute of the FTP meeting at BBN in March 1973.
>
> We were about to wrap up the meeting when Steve Crocker came in and said we have to have a Mail in FTP. So we did it.
>
> That was the same meeting at which in response to the question what happens when one stores a file with a BYTE size of 23 and RETRieves it with a BYTE size of 17? Padlipsky said, “Sometimes when changing oranges into apples one gets lemons.” And it was immediately decided that was the correct response. Good ol’ MAP.  ;-)
>
> John
>
>> On Mar 28, 2022, at 17:24, Dave Crocker via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 3/28/2022 2:07 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
>>> There are artifacts in the RFCs capturing some of the early work. FTP began circa 1971 with RFC172.  At the same time, there was discussion of a "Mail Box Protocol" intended to enable functions like remote printing as a way of sending something to someone else over the ARPANET.   You just send it to their printer.   See RFCs 196, 221.
>>> At first, FTP added a "MAIL <user>" command, which each machine receiving such MAIL could process as it saw fit.  Print it out.
>>
>> RFC 354 (July 1972 and edited by Abhay Bhushan) does not contain the string 'mail'.
>>
>> RFC 475 (March, 1973 and edited by Abhay Bhushan) discusses FTP's MAIL and MLFL commands. It is a meeting report discussing agreement to create those commands.
>>
>> RFC 542 (August 1973 and edited by Nancy Neigus) does not contain the string 'mail'.
>>
>> RFC 765 (Aug, 1973 and edit by Jon Postel) does. But while is cites a mail command, it does not specify it.
>>
>>
>> d/
>>
>> -- 
>> Dave Crocker
>> Brandenburg InternetWorking
>> bbiw.net
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